


Secret Language of Guns

by idyll



Category: Firefly
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-17
Updated: 2005-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idyll/pseuds/idyll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaylee takes a gun apart. Set during the series, post-War Stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret Language of Guns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arsenic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/gifts).



> [](http://amand-r.livejournal.com/profile)[**amand_r**](http://amand-r.livejournal.com/) gave this a beta because she's far too good to me.

When Jayne comes to Kaylee's quarters, her first thought is that maybe he's here to pick up where they left off before, well, Simon caught her eye.

"Now, Jayne," she says and stands in front of the ladder so that Jayne can't step off, "you know I said we oughta stop messing around now that--"

Jayne snorts and reaches out to lift her by the waist and set her down an arm's length away. "Think mighty high of yourself, little Kaylee," he drawls and walks over to her bed. "Pull that chair up, then come get comfortable on the bed. You and me, we got some learnin' to do."

He sets a cloth wrapped bundle on top of her bedding and Kaylee blinks at him. "Learning? Jayne, what--"

"Chair ain't gonna move itself, girl," Jayne grunts. "And I gotta take that run with Mal and Zoe, so we need to do this quick-like."

Kaylee knows better than to keep on asking Jayne questions, because he won't answer them, and even if she refuses to get the chair, that won't help. He'll just get it himself, then tumble her to the bed. Jayne doesn't often get determined and focused, but when he does it comes with a healthy dose of stubborn. Kaylee gets the chair, sets it where Jayne points, then sits cross-legged on the bed next to the bundle.

"Did you get me a present?" Kaylee asks with a grin that gets wider when Jayne glares at her.

"It's not a present," he snaps. "It's just something I bought last time we was planet side. I'm lettin' you have it for a while."

Kaylee snickers and Jayne glares harder, which makes her laugh out loud, and they keep going like that until Jayne gets tired of it and climbs on the bed and manhandles Kaylee until she's sitting between his spread legs, her back to his chest, and fighting for air to breathe.

"You done?" Jayne says, and he sounds all growly, but Kaylee's spent enough time with him in this bunk that she knows the difference between his angry growls and his indulgent growls.

"Yep. Can I open my present now?"

Jayne pinches her arm, then reaches around her to unfold the material, revealing metal pieces that look familiar but that Kaylee can't immediately identify. Least not until the last corner of material is folded back and she sees the handle of a gun. She freezes for one long moment, and in her mind she's back at Niska's station with her hand wrapped around something cold and hard and heavy that's too big for her palm, for her mind, for her heart.

Kaylee tries to push away from Jayne, to get away from the gun, but Jayne is a lot faster than he looks. Or maybe he just got to know Kaylee pretty well, too, during all the time they spent in here. Either way, he wraps an arm around her, sets his massive palm--and Kaylee doesn't think there's a gun too *big* for his palm--in the center of her chest and doesn't let her go anywhere.

"Now, you listen here," he says. He's real quiet, real serious, and there isn't anything at all amused or indulgent in him anymore. "There ain't much I know, and most it you got no use for. But there ain't anyone on this boat knows guns better 'an me and those're something you need to learn."

"I don't," Kaylee says and she can barely hear herself, can't imagine how Jayne hears her well enough that he responds.

"You do."

"Captain says otherwise and he's the one in charge," Kaylee says stubbornly. "You heard him same as everyone else did; he don't have a problem with me not killing. Let me go, Jayne!"

It's not like it used to be; back when they were messing around Jayne'd let Kaylee squirm this way and that because it felt good. But right now Jayne is keeping Kaylee where he wants her, with barely any effort, and Kaylee can't seem to look away from the metal parts in front of her, and she remembers how she crouched down and tried to hide inside *Serenity*, and how it seemed like she'd let *Serenity* down by letting Mal down.

Jayne wrestles Kaylee forward on her stomach, and she can smell the oil on the gun parts, and Jayne's weight is heavy on her back and makes it hard to breathe. Her arms are spread out, Jayne's hands on top of hers, and she feels like something tiny with no power at all, no way to make anything happen, and when she tries to escape by turning her face into the mattress, Jayne just brings his mouth right next to her ear.

"This ain't about killin'," he whispers. "It'd take a man meaner than me to teach you that. But on this boat, with this crew, with our kind of work--you got to understand guns."

"Why?" Kaylee asks, but she already knows the answer. Simon's a healer, but he took up arms to save the Captain. He went on in and he didn't shoot anyone, but that was okay, he still was a real help. Kaylee's been around Mal and Jayne and Zoe long enough that she knows what cover fire is, understands how it works. And she couldn't even do that.

She has nightmares--has had them every single night since they went for Mal--and in them River doesn't show up and take the gun out of Kaylee's hand. Instead, when the others come back with Mal, Niska's men are waiting at the ship and Kaylee is still holding the gun, too scared to do anything with it.

"Come on," Jayne grunts and sits up, pulling Kaylee with him so that she's sitting with her back to his chest again. "This here is an old piece. Antique-like. Don't work; parts are too dirty." He points at a couple of metal parts that are coated in grime and gummed up good and proper. "And there ain't a chance of getting bullets for it."

Kaylee relaxes a little because even if all the metal is fitted together the way it's supposed to be, the gun'll be harmless. Not like a gun at all, even though it'll look like one.

"What do I do?" she asks and her voice is tiny, like her hands, and she wants to hide again. But Jayne picks up one of her little hands, cups it in his own, and then sets one of the parts in her palm.

"Gotta know what you're handling," Jayne tells her. "This here is the magazine. It holds the bullets. Dong ma?" Kaylee nods and Jayne rolls the magazine around in her hand. "Get a feel for it, little girl."

Jayne takes her through each part, tells her its name and what it does. Makes her hold each weight in her hand, learn the surfaces with her fingers, and doesn't move on to the next one until she's comfortable with the current one. And when she sets the fifth and last part back down, he tickles the top of one of her bare feet until she giggles.

But Jayne isn't leaving, which means there's more learning coming, so Kaylee stops laughing and takes a deep breath.

"What now?"

He makes a noise that she knows is some sort of Jayne seal of approval. "Now you put it together."

Kaylee cranes her neck back and looks at him. "You gonna show me how?"

Jayne looks at her like she's crazy. "Never seen anyone who can learn machines like you can." He points at the scattered pieces of the gun on the bed. "This is just a machine, Kaylee. Put it together."

A machine. Kaylee turns forward again and squints at the dismantled gun. Her hands move slowly and awkwardly at first, sorting through the parts like they're pieces to a puzzle, then she moves quick and smooth after she fits the first two pieces together; Jayne helps her when the slide sticks when she attaches it to the barrel, uses his big strong hands to slide it into place.

Five quick steps and Kaylee is suddenly holding a gun. Again. But this one is smaller and it fits in her palm, and she realizes that even though it doesn't work and there aren't any bullets, it's still a gun. This time, it isn't shaking in her grip, and her heart isn't slamming against her chest, and Jayne is behind her, wide and strong and big.

"Get a feel for it," Jayne says again, and while Kaylee turns the gun over in her hands, Jayne rests his chin on her head then tucks it down, and she can feel him smiling against her scalp.

"It ain't hardly nothing," she marvels.

"Just a machine," Jayne reminds her.

So it is, and Kaylee knows machines. They talk to her. Like *Serenity*--every little thing *Serenity* does talks to Kaylee, tells Kaylee how she's feeling, what's going right, what's not working. Kaylee opens her ears, tilts the gun in her hands, then pulls back the slide, frowning at the way it sticks. She presses the trigger and "hms" when it clicks dully.

"You got any of that oil I seen you use on your guns?" Kaylee asks Jayne absently and begins dismantling the gun. Jayne shifts behind her, then sets the oil, a thin wire brush, and a cloth by Kaylee's knee.

An hour later, with Jayne's help, Kaylee reassembles the gun again, and she smiles at how easily everything fits together, at how the slide moves slides smoothly, and the trigger clicks with a slight ping.

"Could I maybe hold onto this for a bit, Jayne?" she asks. "Even though it's not a present and all?"

Jayne gets to his feet and shrugs. "Might as well. Not like I can use it or nothing."

Kaylee stands up on the bed, the gun dangling from her hand, and grins down at Jayne, because she knows that Jayne doesn't buy guns he can't use. Not usually. And he sure as hell doesn't go around letting people borrow anything, much less weapons.

"Thanks," she says, and when she leans down to hug him he has to let her because she'll fall to the floor if he doesn't, and Jayne's never been one to let Kaylee hurt herself like that. He pushes her onto the bed after only a second or two and she lands on her butt.

"Get some sleep," Jayne suggests as he makes his way to the ladder. "Ain't gonna catch the Doc with those bags under your eyes."

Kaylee falls asleep a few hours later, after taking the gun apart and putting it back together three times, listening to what it has to say, how it's feeling. Before her lids fall shut, she thinks about asking Jayne for some of the bullets he probably does have, no matter what he says. And then she thinks about seeing if he'll show her how to shoot it, so that she can hear what it has to say when it's doing what it's meant to do, being what it's meant to be.

She doesn't dream of Niska's station that night. Or even the next.

.End


End file.
